Developing a Stable Business Model

Great business models depend on developing three ‘green lights’, or qualities that help the business succeed, as well as avoiding three ‘red lights’ that can derail a business. Examine your own business to see if you meet the criteria for success or to correct any weaknesses you might have.

Green Lights

1. Acquire high-value customers

High-value customers doesn’t mean rich customers, but customers who meet the following requirements:

Are easy to locate

Allow you to charge a profitable price

Are willing to try your product after minimal marketing expenses

Can generate enough business to meet your sales and profit objectives

If your end users or distributors don’t fit this profile, you can attract high-value customers through partnerships or alliances with companies in the market.

2. Offer significant value to customers

Create significant value and competitive advantage by including the following:

Unique advantages in features and benefits

Better distribution through retail or distribution

More complete customer solutions through alliances with other companies

Lower pricing due to manufacturing efficiencies or pricing options

Faster delivery, broader product line or more customisation options

Modern industries have become innovative in business strategy. This makes it imperative that you stay on the creative edge to fend off competition.

3. Deliver products or services with high margins

Higher margins come from having a product that can be made from an improved process or by having features that provide significant value and allow you to charge more. You can achieve this through:

Using a more efficient distribution channel

Requiring less sales support and sales effort

Lean manufacturing processes

Offering more auxiliary products or other opportunities for revenue without increasing cost

Red FLAGS

1. Provide for customer satisfaction

Consider whether it will be difficult or expensive to satisfy customers once they buy. High customer satisfaction costs can be created by:

High warranty costs

Extensive technical support

Extensive installation requirement

Extensive customer service

Interface problems with other equipment

Customer satisfaction costs, which occur after the sale, are red flags because the costs are typically high and don’t produce revenue or profits. If your type of product might have high customer service costs, you need to configure your business to put these costs on someone else.

2. Maintain market position

A good business model uses its resources to improve its market position, adding new products, features and customers or expanding into new applications. It will be difficult to maintain market position if:

Two or three major customers buy most of your product

Major potential competitors control the distribution network

Technology changes rapidly and requires high-risk product development

There are alternative technologies being developed to meet the same need

You have well funded potential competitors who could quickly move into your market

3. Fund the business

Start-up costs, operating capital, personnel costs and overhead costs are just a small percentage of the funding requirements for any business. The question is whether the investments will have a high return and whether the business can grow without substantial new investments. Red flags include:

ROI is less than 25% in the first three years

Incremental production of products or services requires substantial additional investments

Less than 50% of the investment required will be used in revenue producing areas

Investments have to be made prior to sales commitments

Industry as a whole has a poor ROI or poor profitability

Money is available for the right plan and the right model. You’ll find money available if your ROI is right and you have financial leverage, which means your initial investment will allow you to double or triple sales without requiring any more funding.

Don Debelak is a well-known invention expert who has worked with new products and inventions for over 30 years and is the author of four of the best-known invention books of the last 15 years. He also was the Entrepreneur Magazine’s Bright Idea columnist on inventions for over seven years. As of 2013, Don is also a registered patent agent, #71,743.

Organisational Design Disruptions Do Not Occur In A Vacuum: Future Business Models

In today’s ever-changing world, organisations are using a disruptive business model design to build unique approaches to creating value and organisations that are ready for the future.

At all scales, from micro-enterprise to multinational, operating in multiple settings and contexts, rethinking business models has become one of definite ways of offering customers something truly better than what already exists.

To ensure sustainable business growth, businesses need to navigate modern economic development and societal issues and in so doing articulate what meaningful, inclusive and enduring value looks like. In the past, a linear approach to business model design may have sufficed – inputs enter a logical process that creates outputs of value.

Today, to truly deliver a value proposition that can flourish, an understanding of the way that complex adaptive systems come together to create both outputs and outcomes is required. ACCA identified12 characteristics that organisations are combining as they build new business models. The full model and characteristics can be read here.

The accountancy profession is well placed to support the growth of business models of the future that help build resilient, inclusive and prosperous societies, by leading in strategic roles. In order to be ready to make the most of these opportunities professional accountants will demand new skills. Financial acumen, technical knowledge and ethical judgement are attributes that the accountancy profession can uniquely bring to support business model innovation across the three spheres of value proposition, value creation and value capture.

But to navigate the contours of a changing economy, new mindsets are required. These include the ability to:

think like a system

understand how to capture and assess new sources of value

build creative capabilities to think differently and problem solve

adopt a long-term mindset.

Business models of the future: Systems, convergence and characteristics attempts to answer fundamental questions; why does business model innovation matter? What is the shape of the world in which models need to operate and how do they come together to build future value?

What’s the first step in figuring out how to execute your big idea? Creating a working model for your business.

We’ve all been brainwashed into thinking that the best way to do this is to sit behind our desks and write a long, detailed business plan. You know the kind: It starts with a fancy cover and your mission statement, then describes your team, market, product, competition, and so on.

Most entrepreneurs spend a lot of time and resources writing their plan. Too often, they get feedback from all the wrong people. Their friends and family want to support them, but they’re telling the entrepreneurs only what they want to hear — that they have come up with the next Google or Apple or Tesla (keep in mind, none of this feedback is coming from customers).

By the time the entrepreneur gets to the last section in the business plan — the financials — he’s totally sold on the idea. Sometimes the financial section is left unfinished or dropped entirely as the business is launched.

And why not? We’re passionate. We’re committed. We know we can’t fail. So what are we waiting for? Let’s go!

Here’s the problem: Most entrepreneurs change their business model six times when working through the financial section of their plans. While running the numbers, they identify key distinctions with regard to income and expenses. They gain a deeper understanding of what it will take to break even and how to achieve free cash flow. As a result, they come up with better-informed strategies for attaining their desired financial outcomes.

The most important part of the initial business planning process, and the one people most often neglect, is getting your numbers to tell a story that makes sense for you and your investors. If you start at the beginning of the plan only to learn that your assumptions about the business don’t add up once you reach the end, you’ve lost valuable time and money.

Regardless of whether you’re in startup or growth mode or moving to the next stage of your business, mistakes can be costly, so here’s what I recommend:

1. Start with the last page first

Once I have a basic understanding of what I’d like to build, the market, my target customers, the busi­ness opportunity, and the product, I dig right into the numbers and create a simple one-page spreadsheet that clearly identifies how the money flows. Basically, I write business plans backward. I’ve learned that once the numbers tell the story you want, the rest of the plan will write itself.

2. Don’t wait

Don’t make this process more difficult than it needs to be. Limit your model to one page. Create the simplest, most basic spreadsheet you can that identifies income, expenses, breakeven, cash flow, and the capital required to achieve your outcome. Use conservative assumptions, and don’t rely on best-case scenarios.

3. Get out of the office

You’ll learn more about your business by getting into the market than you ever will sitting behind a desk. At least 50 percent of your time should be outside the office gathering information that can be applied to your plan. That means contacting industry insiders to learn more about the market, talking to prospective customers about their needs, and testing your competition’s products and services.

4. Be careful who you listen to

When we have an idea we passion­ately believe in, we’re convincing. It’s easy for our family and friends to tell us we have a winner on our hands because they want to be supportive.

But when you’re modeling your busi­ness, the people whose feedback matters most are current and potential customers. Listen to what they have to say and apply what you learn to your model. Let their feedback, and not your enthusiasm, sway your projections.

5. Don’t throw out negative feedback

Sometimes it can be difficult to absorb negative feedback in a constructive frame of mind because we’re so close to our projects and have so much on the line. We start rejecting and deflecting feedback that isn’t in line with what we believe.

But honest, educated feedback is like gold — use it to open your mind and ask tough questions about your assumptions. You must be obsessively committed to asking what you can learn from this feedback and how you can apply it.

This is especially important for people entering new markets where they don’t have prior experience. Getting feedback from others who’ve lived in the space will add to your perspective. Sometimes you’ll learn that there are things you don’t know as a newcomer that would significantly impact your financial results.

In fact, this holds true throughout your business’s lifetime. The entrepreneurs I know who’ve built the most successful and thriving businesses are obsessed with getting constant feedback from the marketplace and adapting their businesses based on evolving market needs.

6. Be open to what the numbers tell you

The worst thing you can do is try to manipulate a model to match your assumptions. You need to approach your financial model with a completely open mind.

Recognise that it will probably take longer than you ini­tially thought to get to market, generate revenue, create profits, and accumulate the cash flow you need to operate and further invest in the business. By being open, you’ll be able to make distinctions, apply them to your business, and set yourself on a path to success.

You need to be clear on where you want to go and put a simple and adaptable plan in place to help you get there. The clearer your vision is upfront, the easier it will be to back a plan to help you get there. Being obsessed with customer feedback will enable you to tweak strategy in a way that evolves with the market and helps keep you on top of the competition.

4 Types Of Business Models To Suit Your Business Concept

Different types of business models suit different types of businesses. A business model is the way that a company sells products to its customers. It describes how a business creates, delivers, and captures value.

What type of business model should you adopt?

A business model defines how the enterprise delivers value to customers, gets them to pay for that value, and converts those payments to profit.

There are four basic types of business model that any for-profit business will fall into: